


Never Tear Us Apart

by LWF



Series: Family First [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, even misguided ass luther, hurt five, injured Five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 03:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18086189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LWF/pseuds/LWF
Summary: My take on what would have happened if Five had been there when Luther locked Vanya in the chamber.aka: the way less troublesome way these fools could have stopped the apocalypse.... you know, by TALKING.





	Never Tear Us Apart

**Author's Note:**

> forever salty about the way this scene actually went down.  
> but also undeniably obsessed with this dysfunctional family.

Five is livid. 

Absolutely livid, when he sees what Luther’s done. 

“Let her out. Now.” he demands, voice steely. 

“She hurt Allison, there’s no way I’m letting her out. Dad kept her powers a secret for a reason and--” 

“I. Don’t. Care.” Five enunciates every word carefully, with more patience than he really ought to have at this point. “If you don't let her out of there in the next ten seconds, God so help you I will destroy you, Number One. That clear enough for you?” 

Luther pretends not to be cowed by the threat and refuses to move. “Not happening.” 

Thankfully Klaus and Diego are on his side, because for all of his bravado, Five is still recovering from a gunshot wound, and Mom had been insistent earlier that he stay in bed. 

“Grab him!” is all the warning Luther gets before Klaus and Diego jump at the half-ape man as Five jumps so that he’s behind him at the door. It’s heavy and Five curses not just the fact that he’s still healing and thus not at his full strength, but that all the muscle and bulk he’d built up over the last four decades is nil now. 

Still, the anger inside ignites him to push past his weakness and finally get the door open, as Luther grapples with his siblings. 

Vanya practically falls into his arms, sobbing apologies and shaking. 

Five, not one for physical contact, disregards himself for once and puts his arms around his sisters slight frame. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.” she continues, tears streaking down her face. 

“I know Vanya.” he reassures her, “Allison does too.” 

By now all the fighting in the background has ceased and while Klaus and Diego are on their asses, Luther is still standing, and pissed to boot. “Don’t speak for Allison, when because of what Vanya did, she can’t do it for herself.” he growls out, fists tightening. 

Five turns around, a little too fast, his side throbbing at the exertion, and stands in front of Vanya protectively. “What is the matter with you? How the hell is locking her up going to solve anything? You need to get your head out of your ass!” 

“You need to open your eyes! She’s dangerous! Dad kept her away from the rest of us for a reason! Why can’t you see that?” Luther strides forward, all six feet, five inches of him, and in one swift motion he picks Five up by his shoulders and it’s such a surprise that the thirteen year old only has time to think “ _ouch_ ” when the motion pulls at his stitches, before he’s flung to the side of the room with enough force to make his teeth rattle in his head. 

“You always think you’re right, but you’re not. Not about this!” Luther yells, looming over his brothers prone form, pointing a finger at Vanya. “She slashed Allison’s throat open! She could have killed her, how do you not get that?” he grabs Five by the collar of his shirt and lifts him up into the air again and shakes him. “You think you’re so much better than everyone, that everything you say holds so much weight--”

Klaus and Diego have regained their footing and both are pulling furiously at each of Luther’s monstrous arms so that he’ll let go, but with very little success. 

“Stop, Luther please, you’re hurting him! I’ll go back into the room, I promise, just put him down!” Vanya cries out, when she realizes Five isn’t fighting back or trying to jump out of his grasp.

It’s her voice that finally gets through to Number One. He drops Five unceremoniously to the floor and turns around, shaking his brothers off of him as if they were mere flies. “I put him down, so get in.” 

Diego gets back up. “Fuck that. And fuck you. She’s not going back into that goddamn chamber, you’re insane!” 

“You’ve seen what she’s capable of, you can’t tell me you feel safe around--” 

“Safe? You just manhandled Five into submission without hesitation, you giant fuckin’ ape, and you’re talking about us feeling ‘safe’? You are so delusional, Luther, get a grip already. Dad’s dead, gone, no mas, you’re not his little errand boy anymore, so stop acting like some holier than thou moral officer!” 

“Well someone has to! The rest of you are too busy excusing all this psychotic behavior by blaming Dad for everything in your miserable lives to see--” 

“Whoa, hey! Everyone can it for a minute.” Klaus looks down at the floor, “Is this--is this blood? Where in the hell?” 

Everybody pauses and the siblings follow the red trail to Five, who’s trying his best not to make any noise while presumably bleeding out. His eyes are shut, and he’s gritting his teeth. 

Luther’s eyes go wide, the look would be almost comical if not for the circumstance. “Wha--I didn’t, did I do _that_?!” he had only meant to frighten Five, show him who’s boss, not whatever this is. He would never intentionally cause his siblings any real harm. 

Diego curses under his breath and remembers suddenly that only he and Allison know about the gunshot wound. “Yeah Urkel, you did that!” he’s ready to fight again but from the paleness of Number Five’s complexion, he knows they don’t have the luxury of time to bicker. 

“He got shot, you idiot, you probably reopened the wound. We need to get him to Mom, now.” 

Klaus looks at Ben, alarmed. “He got _shot_ , what the fuck, when did this happen? God, no one tells me anything.” 

Luther starts to bend down to pick him up but Diego beats him to it. “I got him. I think you’ve done about enough, no?” 

Luther looks properly chastised by the accusation; so much so that he doesn’t even complain when Vanya follows them all upstairs and into the infirmary. That can wait. 

“Oh my, what happened here?” Grace puts her hands on her hips and purses her lips. “Were you kids roughhousing again?” 

Diego sets the boy down as gently as he can. “Was all Luther’s fault.” he mutters childishly. 

Luther crosses his arms over his chest but doesn’t deny it. He does gasp audibly, however, when Mom raises Five’s shirt over his stomach and the gauze sitting over the wound is drenched a dark ugly red. 

“Jesus!” Klaus exclaims. It looks bad. Real bad. 

Five whines in pain when Mom removes the bandage and tries to curl in on himself, though Grace won’t allow it. “Stay still.” she commands. “I need to clean and stitch you up again.” 

Vanya stands beside the bed and though she wants to reach for his hand and offer some kind of comfort, she hesitates, afraid of being rejected. 

Through the haze of pain, Five sees this, and in a rare moment of vulnerability, chooses to reach out instead, his fingers brushing hers, as if asking for permission. 

Immediately she latches on, fresh silent tears rolling down her cheeks. 

 

“You shouldn’t be up right now, Mom said you need to rest.” Luther chastises, when Five limps into the living room where the rest of them have been seated in uncomfortable silence for the last hour or so. 

“Mom said you shouldn’t shake people like maracas either, but that didn’t stop you, huh?” he quips, groaning as he sits down next to Vanya on the couch. “I figured it best for everyone to be here if we’re gonna’ have a family meeting.” he nods his head at the entryway, where Allison is standing. 

She looks frail in a way she’s never really been, voiceless, uncertain. Regardless, she steps into the room as well, and before Vanya can say or do anything, she hands her a yellow legal pad. 

Vanya gulps, hands trembling as she takes it. In black marker ink, it reads: 

I’m sorry. I love you. 

Vanya breaks out into tears all over again, shoulders shaking. “I can’t--I’m so sorry Allison, I swear it was an accident I never meant to--” 

Allison puts her finger to her lips in a shushing motion and points back to the legal pad insistently, and then pulls Vanya into as strong an embrace as she can muster. 

Diego pretends he’s still sharpening his knives and not crying, too, but he’s not fooling anyone. 

Klaus smiles at Ben, who sighs in relief. Ben used to wonder “What would these idiots do without me?” and now he doesn’t have to, because the answer is: nearly cause an apocalypse. So, nothing good. 

Luther ruins the hallmark moment by clearing his throat. “We can’t ignore what she’s done.” 

“If we can ignore the fact that you went ape-man on me downstairs not two hours ago, I don’t see why we can’t move past this.” Five raises a challenging brow, and he’d cross his arms over his chest to cement the point, but it still hurts to move that way. 

“That--that’s different.” Luther doesn’t look too sure of himself anymore, or his argument. 

Klaus sighs dramatically. “God, Luther, I am entirely too sober for this mess, and this reiteration of the same bullshit Dad logic is just, too much. Aren’t you tired yet?” 

“For once Klaus is right.” Five agrees. 

Klaus grins at him widely. “Oh I wish I’d gotten that on tape.” 

Five scoffs, “Look, Luther, no one is on your side here. Are Vanya’s powers dangerous? Of course they are, but so were Ben’s, and frankly, so is yours. You broke Diego’s finger playing thumb war when we were kids because you couldn’t control your strength. 

“We’ve all had years to train and practice with our powers, Vanya just found out about this dormant ability she has, and we can help her gain control, but locking her away? That is not the way we are going to go about it. End of discussion.” 

Allison’s grip tightens on Vanyas shoulders, holding her closer and she nods in agreement, eyes conveying what her mouth cannot. Luther would get to Vanya over Allison’s dead body. 

Luther lets out an aggravated sigh, slumping in his chair. “I don’t agree. I don’t care that no one else agrees with me, either. You can all go on pretending you’re not terrified of what she might do next, but I won’t.” he stands to his full height, looks at Vanya directly. 

Five immediately jumps so that he appears again in front of his two sisters. Diego, knife in hand, stands to attention, ready. 

“I will be keeping my eye on you.” Luther warns her, ignoring the others. He walks away in a huff afterwards, not looking back. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to trust Vanya again. He doesn’t know why everyone else doesn’t feel the same way. 

As soon as Luther is out of sight Five stops holding his breath and winces, wrapping an arm around his stomach. “Fuck.” the jump was instinctive, he hadn’t even thought about it as he was doing it, and now it was his body that paid the price. 

“Five!” he feels a hand, a small hand, Vanyas’, on his back. “Diego, get mom.” 

He shakes his head. “M’fine, just,” he takes a breath. “Hurts.” he admits. “Shouldn’t’ve tried to jump so soon after the repair job.” 

“I can carry you back to bed.” Diego offers, though now that the kid is fully conscious, he doubts he’ll take him up on the offer. 

Five wants to tell him to fuck off, but the truth is he’s barely standing as is. The only times he’s allowed himself to sleep in the last eight days were restless alcohol induced naps and passing out from blood loss. “That would be….nice.” he forces himself to say. He knows if he tries to move right now he’ll end up on his ass, so it’s the less embarrassing of his options. 

Diego blinks, shocked. “Oh, ok, ok, here.” it takes some maneuvering but he manages to lift him up so as not to further aggravate his wound. Five puts an arm around Diego’s shoulder to keep himself aloft. 

Klaus offers Allison his arm and with a smile, she takes it, and they all walk upstairs to their bedrooms. Allison falls asleep almost the moment her head hits her pillow, she squeezes Vanyas hand before passing out, and Vanya sits at the edge of her bed with Klaus and Ben hovering by the door for a little before they leave her to get some much needed rest. 

Vanya makes her way to Fives bedroom next, where Diego’s setting him down onto his bed. Five lets out an undignified whimper, which later he will swear was just the bed creaking, and takes another deep breath as he rides out the waves of pain. 

“Sorry,” Diego grimaces. 

“Not your fault.” Five sighs. He rests his head on a pillow and swallows. “Thanks.” 

“Anytime.” Diego wants to push the kids bangs out of his face, but he know he would hate that, so instead he wishes him a goodnight, tells him to yell out if he needs anything else, and leaves the room, patting Vanyas’ shoulder on his way out. 

Vanya sits on the side of Fives’ bed as gently as she can, trying not to disturb her brother. He’s still too pale. “Hey, I know you have to be exhausted, but I just, I wanted to say thank you, for the way you stood up for me back there, I--I don’t deserve it, not after what I did, but--” 

“Hey,” Five scolds. “You do deserve it, you always have.” he stares at her for a moment. He’s thirteen again, a child, but he’s lived a lifetime, he’s a man in his late fifties, and he can’t help but see Vanya as anything but young and vulnerable. She’s always deserved for someone in this godforsaken family to stand up for her, to show her she’s worth the effort. 

Oh how they’ve failed her. How they’ve failed each other… 

Vanya doesn’t look quite look like she believes that just yet, but she smiles nonetheless. “I’ll let you get some rest." 


End file.
